You’re not going to be in a particularly healthy state when you go looking for medical attention. If you require treatment, something is wrong.

When this goes wrong for you, it can feel worse because of the weakened state you may have already been in. This is when you might want to start thinking about the viability of making a medical claim.

An issue of trust

Experiencing medical negligence is a devastating betrayal of trust. You agree to undergo a certain treatment because you’re assured that it’s going to help you start feeling better. But mistakes do happen. The NHS saw a £9 billion cost of harm in 2018/19, showing just how possible it is for these errors do happen.

You should be able to trust your clinicians. If they let you down, you have the right to get justice for what you’ve been through. However, it is an emotive issue. When it comes to taking legal action against our healthcare providers, particularly the NHS, we find it very difficult to get comfortable with the issue.

But if you can’t trust your doctors to deliver the healthcare that they should provide, you have the right to justice.

What it will do

Some people think that making a medical negligence claim is about compensation. However, for most victims of this kind of malpractice, it’s about getting the person responsible to own up to the mistakes they have made.

In a majority of cases, those who have suffered from medical negligence want to help stop it happening to anyone else. And one of the best ways of doing so is to draw attention to what went wrong in your case. If the trust responsible for the negligence can address what happened to you, there’s a good chance it can stop it happening again to someone else.

Getting back to yourself

A medical or hospital negligence claim can result in compensation. But it is intended to help get you back to the position you were in before you suffered from this substandard care. It covers the pain and suffering you’ve been through, as well as any further treatment you will require.

This means it can help you pay for rehabilitation or physiotherapy, as well as any necessary adaptations to your home or vehicle to help you get around. It also extends to compensate for any loss of earnings you’ve suffered as a result of not being able to work.

Rather than it being a payout to keep someone quiet or to allow you to benefit financially, medical negligence compensation is meant to improve your quality of life. That malpractice shouldn’t have happened to you, but it did. And you are entitled to the opportunity to get back to who you were before it ever happened.

Deciding to claim

So when you’re thinking about whether you want to make a claim after experiencing medical negligence, don’t forget that you are entitled to justice. You are entitled to help in getting you back to the position you were in before it ever happened. And you are entitled to have any resulting losses compensated for.

It’s your legal right.

Image copyright: Dmitrii Shironosov